Sweet Teeth: The Day After
by Numisma
Summary: [Fuji x Mizuki] 'Hi, Aniki. How pleasant for you to call when you only visited me just yesterday. Mind telling me what you did to my manager.' Authorised remix of 'Chocolate Buttons' by Winter's Light, written for RemixRedux 2007 on LJ.


Note: This fic is an authorised remix of 'Chocolate Buttons' by Winter's Light. It was written for Remix/Redux 2007 on LJ. Enjoy.

Disclaimer: I don't own Prince of Tennis

-

Yuuta quickly learns that standing in the dormitory hallway, pounding away at his door until his face turns red from yelling, will attract a lot of attention. Fellow students will stare at him as they walk down the halls, baffled at the things he says, formulating in their minds their own ideas of how he got locked out. His neighbors are likely to crack their doors open, poke their heads out into the hallway and tell him, eyebrows raised or eyes narrowed, to keep it down before the nuns hear him. If they haven't already.

The chances are favorable that the longer this goes on, as five minutes turns into fifteen into thirty, the greater the number of students who'll think he's got a screw loose.

Mizuki can probably give him exact statistics on any or all of these things, complete with visual aids covered in graphs and charts and gibberish that makes only a tenth of sense to Yuuta.

Right now, however, Yuuta doesn't care.

Glaring at a passing second year girl till her snickers stop, Yuuta huffs and turns his gaze back to the door. He rests his forehead against the wood, ignoring the scratchy feeling in his throat, and flashes a quick glance of guilt at the raspberry pie by his feet. Then he raises his fist, the heel of which is sore, and begins thundering it against the door.

"Open up! What the hell are you two doing in there!"

His priority is rescuing Mizuki from his brother.

After still no answer he presses his ear against the door, and listens for movement.

They have to come out _sometime_.

…don't they?

-  


Yuuta almost decides not to accept the phone call, but in the end, he's got to know. "Aniki," he says, placing his ear to the phone, "what the hell did you do to Mizuki?" He knows his brother will only smile into the receiver before giving some statement that not only doesn't answer that, but sidesteps into some other topic of conversation.

But it's worth a try. Who knows; he might get a tenth of an answer.

"Yuuta." There's a pause; he can hear a soft hitch of breath. In his mind he can already picture that wide grin. "Mm, that's hardly a polite way to greet your brother on the phone."

"Sorry." Yuuta rolls his eyes and says, without sincerity, "Hi, Aniki. How pleasant for you to call when you only visited me just yesterday. Mind telling me what you did to my manager?"

"Did you like the pie?"

"Aniki."

"Yes?"

"I asked a question. An important one."

"So did I," and Yuuta can hear his smile now. Yuuta covers his eyes and groans. "Yuuta?"

"_What_." With a guy like Syuusuke for an older brother, getting straight answers is like pulling teeth. Guys like Syuusuke - or maybe not quite since there's no one else like Syuusuke - enjoy being anything but straightforward.

"The pie," and Syuusuke insists on knowing how much remains. He wouldn't want Yuuta to get fat or sick from the binge. Nee-san's pies are always rich and flavorful, and it seems like forever that Yuuta's had that sweet tooth. Yuuta spends the next few minutes trying to worm his way through the conversation, but his brother seems to have backup for every possible diversion Yuuta can send his way. No matter which direction he steers things, there is only one way to play this game of words and wits and word-twists.

No, he only ate half the pie, no, the rest won't go to waste, and no, he's not about to lose his temper over the phone. It's just another way he'll lose to Aniki, and he's not going down without answers. It's better to take a deep breath and wait. There's no logical reason his brother would call only about the pie.

Then again, his brother defies logical reason as much as he defies statistics.

"So," Yuuta ventures during a lull in their conversation. Syuusuke doesn't answer, so Yuuta heaves a sigh before continuing. "I answered your question."

"Yes, you did," his brother answers happily.

"Then are you going to answer mine?" Yuuta grouses back.

"I might. What was it you asked? You'll have to forgive me, I got all caught up in our conversation and it seems I must have completely forgotten."

Yuuta can't prove he's lying through his teeth, but neither can he tell. Neither of these is news. "Mizuki-san. What did you do to scar him?"

"Hm, I don't recall scarring him. What gave you that idea?"

"Aniki. You were in my dorm room, with Mizuki-san, for half a damn hour with the door locked." Not only that, thinks Yuuta, but his brother gave him that pie in a deliberate act of misdirection, a means to trick him into leaving so he could be locked out. "Unless you had become temporarily deaf--" And Yuuta wouldn't put it past him; his brother was unpredictably skilled at everything. "--there is no way you could not have heard me _pounding on the door_. You were doing something to him. _What_?"

Syuusuke laughs into the receiver. "Scarring someone and doing something to him are hardly the same thing. Most of the time, that is," he adds cheerfully.

At this, Yuuta is picturing Mizuki right after his brother left, recollects the way his senpai flailed around for a bit afterward. His shirt, normally pristine and pressed, was disheveled and smudged. His buttons were a mess; his hair was askew; his ego was higher than a kite. Yuuta gives a mental shudder. "Whatever. What did you do?"

"I think I've decided I really like cherry lip balm," Syuusuke offers with an airy sigh.

"I think I don't care. I- wait… what?" Yuuta blinks in confusion. He glances around nervously.

"Lip balm," Syuusuke offers. "Cherry. The flavor is subtle, non-distracting, and lasts a long time without any need for reapplication."

"Right. Uh huh. Uh, Aniki?" Yuuta says, brows knit together, tongue running over his lip in a subconscious move. What did cherry lip balm have to do with… And then it hits him like a cart of tennis balls. "Oh no you did NOT!"

"I'll see you both next weekend, then?" 


End file.
